5.0 V8 EFI Swap: 2000 Ford Ranger Pickup
A 2000 Ford Ranger with a V8 mated to a slushbox with large 4X4 style tires might not be the most exciting drive featured on these pages today…but it really makes you wonder why Ford never sold them that way when new…and furthermore, just what happened to the small truck market anyway? Find this 2000 Ford Ranger with 5.0 V8 swap offered for $5,999 near Detroit, MI via craigslist.
Interestingly enough the Ranger is rumored to be on the way back from the grave for the 2018 model year, but the last compact pickup sold from Ford in the USA was the 1993-2012 Ranger. However, this Ranger is far from stock and features a surprise under the hood.
Gone is the Pinto 2.3, or Vulcan/Cologne V6 that would have been certainly functional, but not fun — and instead is a 5.0 liter V8 from an Explorer/Mountaineer mated to a 4R70W auto. The 210 horsepower and 280 ft-lbs of torque is pushed to all four wheels in case you want to use this thing to plow some snow.
See another V8 powered Ranger? tips@dailyturismo.com
Showing the truck you are trying to sell with a snowplow attached is a bad idea. Showing abuse never helps it sell faster.
I've read that when Ford discontinued the Ranger, it cost them more to build than the V6 F150. The F150 got better gas milage and had a higher payload and towing rating. The Ranger had gotten old and used very old processes to build.
I'm curious to why nobody builds a mini-truck anymore. Seems a modern mini could get better than 30mpg quite easily. Retro styles come back, maybe even the 45 degree angle french'd license plate.
If true, that's a Ford management issue. They decided the Ranger didn't matter.
Perhaps a completely reasonable decision from their perspective. But, damn, the current fleet of pickups out there are huge, nasty things to live with.
I have fantasies of a late '60s Chevy half-ton truckarm-suspension pickup, but lowered with a carbon-fiber cab and front body (keep the bed steel to balance things out) and a giant LS engine.
The trucks do get bigger every year. The beds are so high it's a problem to load .
Ford said it will be making the ranger again in a few years. No doubt if will be the size of the last generation f150…
Didn't we see the current generation Ranger in the DT report on the Mexican road race?
Bob – yes! Ford IS making the new Ranger already, just not selling it in the US & Canada (yet?).
Most modern trucks need to cut back on the 'roids, okay?
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Got it, I mean…never mind.
as much as a good used 4.0 sohc Ranger engine cost ($1200-1800), a handy person could buy a good running 5.0 V8 Explorer (under $2000) and swap the goodies over to the Ranger and have a truly awesome truck; it'd be a lot more work but to the right person, it'd be well worth the effort.
If you can buy that Explorer for that money.
But…why would anyone pay 2x as much for a 4-liter Ford V6 as I paid for a healthy 130K-mile BMW M62 V8 on a pallet? If you've got a self-pull type junkyard handy, and an equally delusional friend or two, you can roll the dice on one of theirs for $150-400 depending on when and what.
you're not going to put that BMW engine in a Ranger truck. The thing with junkyard parts is the parts most prone to failure are the most valuable. A SOHC 4.0 engine is a piece of crap (and the timing chain is a bitch to change),it's a truck motor so a truck that needs an engine is usually worth fixing. Why don't you price a BMW X5 transmission, the reason the BMW engines are so cheap is because they're bolted to a transmission that cost over $5,000 to replace when they fail (and they always fail)so off to the junkyard they go with their still running great engine.
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I don't need to price an X5 transmission, at least the early ones – it's a 5HP24 with a transfer case hung on the back. The 5HP24 is not difficult to rebuild, I did the one in our 540i (early 5HP24, they all crack the A-drum around the snap-ring) for $800 in parts and about $125 in making tools (waterjet-cutting parts for compressing the clutch packs in the drums.) But I have the tools now, they're shop-quality and could do another one in a day or so. If you find someone who wants to get rid of a 540i wagon with a broken transmission let me know, please.
The transmission in our X5 was rebuilt before we got it, so that was on the previous owner's MasterCard. Yeah, she spent close to $5K. Looking under that thing the hardest part would be the R&R of the transmission, much easier in the RWD 5er.
BTW if you want to grok the 5HP24 rebuild process google '5HP24 RRPhil' for a guy in the UK who does them for fun.
Oh and I've got a busted 5HP24A in the driveway, an Audi S6 Avant bought at 47K and busted at 143K, it's actually been sitting since before the 540i puked its transmission at 197K. It's full of parts to do an 01E 6-speed manual swap, but life has slowed that down.
I would like to see some one come out with a smaller pickup then current crop of midsize Tacoma, Frontier,Canyon etc with a diesel option. I like this one for the money forget the snowplow.
The polar opposite of this swap is represented by our 2004 Mazda B2300 – a four cylinder engine that gets the job done without breaking the bank on fuel economy and a 5-speed row-your-own-gearbox. Even with only 135 or so hp on tap it has pulled some big trailers and served yeoman duty for us. AFAIK the engine is a Mazda unit, dohc and 16v not the Kent / Pinto unit mentioned above.
I think it's a Duratec,, (the head looks just like the one on the twin cam Focus) it's built by Ford; it's in the Ranger also; I do know it's a much more difficult engine to work on and the parts are far more expensive than the old single cam engines but the do have more power and I'm sure runs cleaner